Spanish and Portuguese Citizenship for Sephardic Jews
Within the last three years, Spain and Portugal have begun to offer citizenship to the descendants of Sephardic Jews who were exiled during the religious persecutions of the late 15th century. As a result of these new laws, we’ve received many requests for research into possible Sephardic ancestry. We are happy to assist in these research efforts, but before pursuing possible Sephardic connections it is important to understand the … [Read more...]

We’re fresh off the holiday season, and that meant movies in our household! My family enjoys all the standard classics, but as a genealogist, I must confess that one movie stands out as my all-time favorite: Avalon was the perfect Thanksgiving kickoff to the holiday season.
This autobiographical film was written, directed, and produced by Barry Levinson in 1990 and centers on the stories told by his Russian Jewish immigrant grandfather Sam Krichinsky. The movie is set in the early 1950s … [Read more...]

Whether you're heading to Washington, D.C. for a vacation or family history research, your trip is not complete without a visit to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum. Founded on the premise of being a "permanent living memorial to the victims of the Holocaust" by an act of Congress, the Museum opened to the public in April 1993. Located just a short distance from the National Mall, the austere façade welcomes those seeking to gain knowledge on this tragic chapter in world history.
For … [Read more...]

This post concludes our three-part series on Jewish genealogy. If you missed parts one or two, they can be found here or here.
Record Types
Jewish families appeared in a variety of records throughout their time in Eastern Europe. When conducting ancestral research for Jewish families, the following resources for their town, district, and region should be considered:
Civil Registration: government-kept records of births, marriages and deaths.
Synagogue Records: Jewish-specific records of … [Read more...]

In a previous post, we covered an introduction to Jewish immigrant research, focusing on historical context, migration patterns, and determining the European hometown.
Once you've made the connection across the pond, however, there is still work to be done.
Maps and Gazetteers
Once you have found a record that names your Jewish immigrant’s hometown, it is important to identify all possible matches for this town. First, you should try to identify the region from the Pale of Settlement where … [Read more...]

In the last several hundred years, there were three major influxes of Jews into the United States (and countries like England and Canada).[1] The Sephardic Jews from Spain and Portugal were the first to arrive, coming during the Colonial years of American history. The second wave was of Jewish families from Germany (Ashkenazic Jews), who began arriving in serious numbers in the 1840s. The last major wave of Jewish immigration into the United States was the Eastern European Jews (also Ashkenazic … [Read more...]